, and sweet. Perhaps it is from one of the rooms outside--dimly
seen through the green foliage--where the lights are more brilliant, and
forms are moving. But just in here there is no music save the tinkling
drip, drip of the little fountain that plays idly amongst the ferns.

Lady Baring is at home to-night, and in the big, bare rooms outside
dancing is going on, and in the smaller rooms, tiny tragedies and
comedies are being enacted by amateurs, who, oh, wondrous tale! do know
their parts and speak them, albeit no stage "proper" has been prepared
for them. Perhaps that is why stage-fright is not for them--a stage as
big as "all the world" leaves actors very free.

But in here--here, with the dainty flowers and dripping fountains, there
is surely no thought of comedy or tragedy. Only a little girl gowned all
in white, with snowy arms and neck, and diamonds gittering in the soft
masses of her waving hair. A happy little girl, to judge by the soft
smile upon her lovely lips, and the gleam in her dark eyes. Leaning back
in her seat in the dim, cool recesses of the conservatory, amongst the
flowers and the greeneries, she looks like a little nymph in love with
the silence and the sense of rest that the hour holds.

It is broken, however.

"I am so sorry you are not dancing," says her companion, leaning towards
her. His regret is evidently genuine, indeed, to Hardinge the evening is
an ill-spent one that precludes his dancing with Perpetua Wynter.

"Yes?" she looks up at him from her low lounge amongst the palms. "Well,
so am I, do you know!" telling the truth openly, yet with an evident
sense of shame. "But I don't dance now because--it is selfish, isn't
it?--because I should be so unhappy afterwards if I _did_!"

"A perfect reason," says Hardinge very earnestly. He is still leaning
towards her, his elbows on his knees, his eyes on hers. It is an intent
gaze that seldom wanders, and in truth why should it? Where is any other
thing as good to look at as this small, fair creature, with the eyes,
and the hair, and the lips that belong to her?

He has taken possession of her fan, and gently, lovingly, as though
indeed it is part of her, is holding it, raising it sometimes to sweep
the feathers of it across his lips.

"Do you think so?" says she, as if a little puzzled. "Well, I confess I
don't like the moments when I hate myself. We all hate ourselves
sometimes, don't we?" looking at him as if doubtfully, "or is it only